Car Of The Week: Renault Scala Automatic

Bangalore: After ending a failed business relationship with Mahindra, Renault, the French car maker was struggling in the country for a long time to find roots in the market. But with the launch of its SUV Duster and a range of sedans, the automobile manufacturer was able to catch the heart of millions. The French giant entered the new year with a 50% jump in market share in four months in the A3 premium sedan segment.

Eyeing at the growing automatic market of the country, Renault launched its latest addition into the range, automatic version of Scala, last week. The car, which is known to offer more value than its price tag is coming with an ARAI certified mileage of 18 Kmpl!

According to Renault India MD Marc Nassif, “With more and more cars on the road as well as frequent stop-and-go traffic, India has been seeing an increase in demand for automatic sedans in recent years. However, despite the growing interest for these cars, petrol automatic vehicles are still limited to a 6 per cent share in the premium sedan segment because they deliver lower mileage and higher cost of ownership. The Scala X-tronic CVT aims to bridge this gap by offering class-leading fuel efficiency, reliability and performance.” 

Interior And Exterior

In interiors, the Scala automatic is not different from its manual version. With leather seats, remote audio control in one of the three gearing spokes, start-stop switch and the rotary design of the air-condition controls, the car looks luxurious.

The exterior is not much different from the familiar Nissan Sunny, except a small ‘Scala CVT, badge in the rear which stands for Continuous Variable Transmission.

Drive

The 1498 cc Nissan engine comes with a new kind of transmission- CVT or continuous variable transmission. The 97 BHP of max power churned out by engine is efficiently managed by the CVT gearboxes using belts to keep the revolutions per minute at optimum levels. The transmission has no set number of gears, but an infinitely variable gear ratio, which indeed offers an unbelievable mileage of almost 18, pretty heavy for an automatic car that runs on petrol.

The car comes in two variants and the prices are yet to be revealed, but expect it to be in the Rs 8.25 lakh to Rs 9.10 lakh range.

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